Rockets owner Alexander takes job as fan seriously

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But whether you paint your face red and scream at referees a couple of dozen nights a year at Toyota Center or you have on occasion resorted to throwing objects at the television in your living room, you are not likely to be a bigger Rockets fan than Leslie Alexander.

Alexander was as happy about the team’s 808th regular-season win under him as he was about the first.

That it came by 20 points before a sellout crowd of 18,267 against the San Antonio Spurs made it all the sweeter for the man who started signing Rockets paychecks in 1993. Like most fans, Alexander lists in-state foes Dallas and San Antonio as the team’s biggest rivals.

Winning is fun.

According to Alexander, the past two years in which the Rockets won 42 and 43 games (technically winning seasons) weren’t particularly enjoyable. A game or two above .500 without a trip to the playoffs is far from satisfactory.

“Losing takes a lot of the fun out of it,” Alexander said. “That’s not a great team. We’re looking for greatness.”

Like many fans, Alexander longs for the days when the Rockets were contenders, even saying it hurts him to see his team in the middle of the pack.

Of course, Alexander was quickly spoiled as an owner. The New Jersey native’s first Rockets squad started the season with 15 straight wins and claimed victories in 22 of its first 23 games. That team delivered the city’s first NBA championship, and the following year’s bunch added title No. 2.

‘I just don’t like losing’

Alexander’s team is now mired in a stretch in which it has won only one playoff series in the past 14 seasons.

But don’t try to convince him that a complete house cleaning to unofficially tank a season in hopes of acquiring a franchise-changing lottery pick is the right move.

“I’ve been offered that situation (as an option),” Alexander said. “It’s very tough for me to lose. I just don’t like losing. To see my team (as) garbage makes me very unhappy to tell you the truth.

“I don’t like losing, I just don’t.”

There was quite the uproar when Alexander said before he took ownership of the team that he would be a hands-on owner.

“Uh-oh,” we thought.

But two decades later, Alexander, who says he can’t imagine selling the team because he is having too much fun owning it, has proved to be the best professional team owner this city has known.

Alexander describes himself as a hands-off owner since he doesn’t tell the head coach who to play or how to play, but he is involved in every move the team makes, offering suggestions on players he’d like to see general manager Daryl Morey acquire and weighing each trade before signing off on them.

When the team doesn’t play well, he isn’t shy about letting his charges know he is unhappy. Morey has those conversations regularly. Rookie coach Kevin McHale got a taste of it after the Rockets’ season-opening loss at Orlando.

Save for a couple of minutes in the third quarter, Alexander didn’t think the Rockets played hard in that game.

“Accountability,” Alexander said. “There’s got to be accountability.

“I can’t just sit there and watch.”

But that is exactly what he does most of the time at Toyota Center, though he says he is more boisterous when watching games on television.

Thursday was a good night to watch, as the Rockets never trailed and so controlled the Spurs that San Antonio all but threw in the towel at halftime.

‘All in this together’

Yet, as celebratory as the atmosphere was, not many in the crowd, not even those in the expensive courtside seats, approached Alexander.

“People think I’m very standoffish,” he said. “I think they get that impression. I think people are afraid to come up to me.

“I’m not smiling all the time, I guess.”

One gets the sense that Alexander wouldn’t mind more fan interaction. After all, fans like being around fans.

“I love Rockets fans,” Alexander said. “I love it that people cheer with me for the team. That we’re all in this together.”